High Performance Computing (HPC) Systems
TACC operates two of the most powerful and capable high performance computing systems in the world, which are used by thousands of scientists and engineers each year to perform research in nearly every branch of knowledge. TACC's largest supercomputer, Ranger, can perform 579.4 trillion operations per second (or teraflops), and is nearly 30,000 faster than today's desktop computers. TACC's newest system, Lonestar 4, which went online in Feb. 2011, clocks in at more than 302 teraflops and offers nearly 200 million computing hours per year to researchers. At 10 petaflops, Stampede, to be deployed in Jan. 2013, will be 20 times more powerful than Ranger and is expected to be one of the world's best instruments for scientific computing.
Dell Linux Cluster: Lonestar
The TACC Dell Linux Cluster (Lonestar) is a powerful, multi-use cyberinfrastructure HPC and remote visualization resource.
Lonestar contains 22,656 cores within 1,888 Dell PowerEdgeM610 compute blades (nodes), 16 PowerEdge R610 compute-I/Oserver-nodes, and 2 PowerEdge M610 (3.3GHz) login nodes. Each compute node has 24GB of memory, and the login/development nodes have 16GB. The system storage includes a 1000TB parallel (SCRATCH) Lustre file system, and 276TB of local compute-node disk space (146GB/node). Lonestar also provides access to five large memory (1TB) nodes, and eight nodes containing two NVIDIA GPU's, giving users access to high-throughput computing and remote visualization capabilities respectively.
A QDR InfiniBand switch fabric interconnects the nodes (I/Oand compute) through a fat-tree topology, with a point-to-point bandwidth of 40GB/sec (unidirectional speed).
Compute nodes have two processors, each a Xeon 5680 series 3.33GHz hex-core processor with a 12MB unified L3 cache. Peak performancefor the 12 cores is 160 GFLOPS. Eight GPU nodes contain two NVIDIA M2070 GPU's contained in two Dell C6100 servers. The new Westmere microprocessor (basically similar to the Nehalem processor family, but using 32nm technology) has the following features: hex-core, shared L3 cache per socket, Integrated Memory Controller, larger L1 caches, Macro Ops Fusion, double-speed integer units, Advanced Smart Cache, and new SSE4.2 instructions. The memory system has 3 channels and uses 1333 MHz DIMMS.
For more information about using Lonestar, see the Lonestar User Guide.
| System Name: | Lonestar 4 |
| Host Name: | lonestar.tacc.utexas.edu (lslogin1.tacc.utexas.edu lslogin2.tacc.utexas.edu) |
| IP Address: | 129.114.53.21 & 22 |
| Operating System: | Linux |
| Number of Processors: | 22,656 (compute) |
| Total Memory: | 44 TB |
| Peak Performance: | 302 TFLOPS |
| Total Disk: | 276TB(local), 1000TB(global) |
Sun Constellation Linux Cluster: Ranger
Ranger went into production on February 4, 2008 using Linux (based on a CentOS distribution). The system components are connected via a full-CLOS InfiniBand interconnect. Eighty-two compute racks house the quad-socket compute infrastructure, with additional racks housing login, I/O, and general management hardware. Compute nodes are provisioned using local storage. Global, high-speed file systems will be provided, using the Lustre file system, running across 72 I/O servers. Users will interact with the system via four dedicated login servers, and a suite of eight high-speed data servers. Resource management for job scheduling will be provided with Sun Grid Engine (SGE).
Any researcher at a U.S. institution can submit a proposal to request an allocation of cycles on the system. The request must describe the research, justify the need for such a powerful system to achieve new scientific discoveries, and demonstrate that the proposer's team has the expertise to utilize the resource effectively.
- 90% of the system is dedicated to XSEDE
- 5% of the system is allocable to Texas higher education institutions
- 5% of the system is allocable to industry through TACCs Science & Technology Affiliates for Research (STAR) Program
To submit a proposal to request an allocation, please visit the XSEDE website.
Researchers at Texas higher education institutions, please contact Chris Hempel This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
For more information about using Ranger, see the Ranger User Guide.
| System Name: | Ranger |
| Host Name: | ranger.tacc.utexas.edu |
| IP Address: | 129.114.50.163 |
| Operating System: | Linux |
| Number of Nodes: | 3,936 |
| Number of Processing Cores: | 62,976 |
| Total Memory: | 123TB |
| Peak Performance: | 579.4TFlops |
| Total Disk: | 1.73PB (shared) 31.4TB (local) |